The present invention relates generally to improvements in growing and merchandising plants, and specifically to the provision of improved soil plugs for growing plants, where the plug and plant are to be sold at retail and thereafter used by the purchaser in decorative hangers, plaques and the like.
Standard practice heretofore has been to provide plants for sale either in a bare root condition or with a soil block around the roots. Many plants cannot be readily handled in the bare root condition and require an intact soil block about the roots. In such case flats or other containers of soil blocks with plants growing therein are provided, such as in the case of bedding plants, seeded foliage plants, foliage plant cuttings, certain types of nursery stock, and many field transplants for vegetable crops.
The difficulty with the prior practice has been that the soil blocks had to be handled with extreme care and did not stand up well in shipping, i.e., the soil blocks would break up and drop away from the roots during handling and shipment.
One prior art method of handling such plants is to provide a plastic bag containing loose soil with the growing plant extending therefrom, examples of such systems being disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,172,234 granted Mar. 9, 1965 to B. W. Eavis and U.S. Pat. No. 3,362,106 granted Jan. 9, 1968 to J. E. Goldring. In yet another prior system, soil has been stabilized using plastic resins, examplars of such soil stabilizing materials and methods being disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,336,129 granted Aug. 5, 1967 to R. A. Herrett et al, U.S. Pat. No. 3,373,009 granted Mar. 12, 1968 to M. E. Pruitt et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 3,472,644 granted Oct. 14, 1968 to R. Woodside et al. None of these prior soil stabilizing methods has stabilized the soil with the growing plants therein, because certain of the ingredients present during the reaction of the stabilizing resins are injurious and fatal to growing plants. Specifically, one of the common solvents used in the resin systems for stabilizing soils is acetone, acetone being highly toxic to plants, see An Introduction To Bacterial Physiology, by E. L. Oginsky et al, W. H. Freeman & Company, San Francisco, 1954, see page 99.